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Essay justice in the oresteia

Justice is often taken for granted in the world we live in today with a judicial system that gives fair punishment for most crimes. In the Oresteia justice works much differently, where there are no judges or a court system to resolve disputes, instead there is revenge. Revenge is very messy because somebody will and has to get hurt first to desire revenge, and it leads to a cycle that cannot and will not end until everybody is dead. Justice does not and cannot only be revenge because in the end nobody would be left in that system. Aeschylus' Oresteia focuses on revenge as justice, with the old system that no longer works and that someone must fix, and a new system that has many advantages.

The old system, one of revenge, leads to death after death; it also requires someone to kill the murderer and avenge the victim's death. Revenge is often spurred on my loss of a loved one. Clytemnestra is no exception to this rule; she feels that she must avenge the murder of her daughter by killing her husband, Agamemnon. When Agamemnon arrives from conquering Troy, Clytemnestra only wishes that "by all rights our child should be hereâ€¦/Orestes" (867-868). She flatters him and attacks him through his greatest weakness, his pride by treating him and giving him the welcome of a god, "give me the tributes of a man, / and not a god, a little earth to walk on, / not this gorgeous work (918-920). Agamemnon realizes that Clytemnestra is not only treating him very well because he is returning home a victor but also that he is just returning alive. After Clytemnestra kills her husband and shows the blood stained body to the e...

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...h you, Athena" (928-929). The new system allows for people to have a fair trial, and it does not leave everybody dead in the end.

The old system where justice equaled revenge was out of date and not practical because in the end everybody would have ended up hurt or dead. Orestes knew change was necessary not only for his survival but also the survival of the Greek world. The new system was fairer for the accused as well as the victim, and it did not make blood feuds that ran for several generations. Justice will be something mankind is always striving to improve and trying to obtain the perfect system.

Works Cited

Aeschylus. The Oresteia. Trans Robert Fagles. The Norton Anthology of World